Food Co-Op Closing After
65 Years
Demise blamed on waning
activism and shrinking
free time
sfgate.com
Suzanne Herel, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 28,
2001
They were neighborhood centers
where you could buy organic food,
thumb your nose at chain grocery
stores and chew over the political
issues of the day.
But customer-owned food co-ops in
the Bay Area, done in by increasing
competition, waning social activism
and shrinking free time, are about to
go the way of full-service gas
stations.
The end will come April 14, when the
Palo Alto Co-op Market closes its
doors after 65 years.
"The support for co-ops is not as
strong now," said manager Larry
Pinney, who has worked at the store
for 17 years. "People's priorities have
changed. People are so busy."
Created in the 1930s by scrappy
survivors of the Depression, co-ops
caught on in the politically charged
1960s and '70s. In their heyday, more
than a dozen dotted the East Bay, San
Francisco and the Peninsula.
The Palo Alto market was among the
oldest but was drowning in a sea of
red ink. Its board of directors this
week announced the sale of its
property for a shade under $4 million
to an unnamed buyer.
The co-op's demise signals a
widespread cultural and societal shift,
members say. But for patrons, many
of whom have shopped there for
more than 20 years, it's the small
things that will be missed.
Among them, the model train that
travels back and forth above the meat
freezers, the 1-cent mechanical pony
rides, the Chinese chicken salad
dressing that Safeway doesn't carry
and the clerks who know your name.
"Now, I'll just be another woman
behind a shopping cart," said 19-year
customer Jackie Tucker, pausing in
the soup aisle yesterday.
Bill Hill, who stood in frozen foods
selecting boxes of peas and beans,
joined the co-op in the 1960s, when
it offered a "kiddie corral," a play
area set aside for children while their
parents shopped.
"I just liked the whole idea of people
getting together and running our own
business," Hill said. "But society is
not oriented toward co-ops."
In San Francisco, two worker-owned
cooperatives remain: Other Avenues
Community Food Store and Rainbow
Grocery. They're not owned by their
customers but controlled by their
employees, a significant difference
when it comes to community buy-in
and running the business.
Angelynne Burke, co-manager of the
26-year-old Other Avenues, said she
had seen business improve since a
nearby co-op closed and her store
became worker- owned.
Palo Alto's co-op, meanwhile, boasts
13,559 members who each paid a
one- time $30 fee to have a say in the
running of the store.
The closing of the Palo Alto market
has greater repercussions than the
loss of specialty foods. Dozens of
area residents who can't leave their
homes rely on the co-op's volunteer
shopping program, which has
delivered groceries to shut-ins for 28
years.
Co-op board President Duane Bay
said two neighborhood groups had
stepped in to keep the program going.
However, he said, there no longer
will be a central resource for new
clients who want to sign up for the
service.
In the past 12 years that Bay has
served on the co-op board, he has
observed changes in the community
and the marketplace that have
rendered the cooperative initiative
obsolete.
"Competition in the business has
become great, and small retail just
can't make it," he said. As for the
customers, "the number of hours
people work has gone up, and
because they have more money, a
number of people are eating out.
There's not nearly as many people
who are cooking from scratch."
This is a change from 1935, he said,
when a group of 15 people got
together and bought a case of corn,
thus creating the Palo Alto Co-op.
In its granola days, the co-op ran six
stores. By 1988, that number was
down to three.
"At one time, the co-op was a leader
in innovation with bulk foods and
organic foods," Pinney said.
Now, he said, most stores stock such
specialties, along with hot food and a
wider selection of meat and fish.
In recent years, the store has been
hemorrhaging money.
With cash from the sale, the group
will just be able to cover its debt,
with between $300,000 to $500,000
left over for future programs.
Eric Redstrom, who has worked at
the co-op since 1970, will miss being
able to walk across the street from his
house -- the one with the Grateful
Dead stickers in the window -- to
work.
"I've watched kids grow up here, and
now they bring their kids here," he
said. "It's a family."
E-mail Suzanne Herel at
sherel@sfchronicle.com. |
